


the hush of the rain

by EssayOfThoughts



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Betty is awesome, Gen, Thaddeus Thunderbolt Ross is a dickhead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-12 04:00:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9054514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts
Summary: “Sir,” Betty tells T’Challa. “I think you owe me a very big explanation.”





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theMightyPen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theMightyPen/gifts).



> To my lovely friend L, I hope you enjoy this.
> 
> Thanks for the title to Niamh, who suggested it.

Betty stands in the large clear room and looks around. It’s a big space, elegant. There’s something of a modern art flourish to its trimmings, but also the same touches she’s seen outside the building, seen in the city, seen  _ everywhere _ since she crossed the border. Touches of colour, neatly angled designs, the face of a panther, snarling, just like the vast statue carved out of the mountain beyond.

Wakanda. 

She doesn’t know if Bruce is here - she knows it’s unlikely - but she also knows that it doesn’t matter. T’Challa has said that he would like to see all with enhanced abilities abiding by the same rules, working for humanity’s betterment and she knows that means he’ll track down Bruce eventually. That’s not why she’s here, though.

(The packet in her bag weighs heavily on her shoulder.)

A woman - tall, dark, head shaved so close the skin shines, golden jewellery and silver-tipped gloves bright contrast against her skin - strides across the floor. The way her shoes click, her posture would all imply she’s wearing heels but when Betty looks they’re just solidly heeled boots. The woman walks like a queen.

“Dr. Ross,” she says. “I am Nareema. You said you have information for us?”

(Betty’s fingers spasm on the straps of her bag.)

 

* * *

 

“My father,” Betty says to Nareema after showing her the papers, “Is not a good man. Bruce - you’d know him as Hulk - has been running from my father for years. Now he’s vanished and he hasn’t come forward to sign the Accords, my father is going to go after him. He wants to use his blood to make more people like him.” She slides a picture out from underneath, a human face, warped beyond imagining, stares up at them. “They call this Abomination. They. He. They were trying to replicate Bruce’s serum. This is what they got. He’s too unstable though, too dangerous to use openly, they want to get Bruce back not only to make more but to refine it.”

Nareema’s gloved fingers tap on the hardwood table, metal clacking softly against the polish. 

“Your father,” Nareema says, “Being Secretary Ross.”

Betty nods. “He hides this part of his past. But. It’s also his present, it’s why he pushed for the Accords.”

“Doctor Ross,” Nareema says. “Have you been in contact with your father recently?”

_ They don’t believe me. _

“I don’t have to be,” Betty says, trembling with something almost anger. “I don’t have to be, I know my father. This study-” she stabs her finger down on the packet “-is still ongoing. The hunt for Bruce is still ongoing.  _ My father is a monster.” _

“That as may be,” Nareema says. “But we shall have to verify these claims ourselves.”

 

* * *

 

The rooms she’s shown to are nice. There’s a place for her to plug her laptop in - they even provide an adapter - and there’s a post-it with the Wifi name and a note that says  _ No password; Wakanda considers the internet a human right. _

The signal is ridiculously good, for an open network.

_ Well, _ she thinks.  _ This is Wakanda. They’re as technologically advanced as Stark, if not more. _

The room is elegant - modern flair, Wakandan touches. The vast window on one side of the room is subtly mirrored when she steps out onto the balcony and tries to look in and looks down to the vast courtyard below. In amongst the shrubs and trees of the palace grounds children play, parents picnic. 

It’s like some kind of Utopia.

 

* * *

 

“We have verified everything,” Nareema says the next day. Betty had been invited down to another room, to have breakfast and Nareema’s words as soon as she sits down makes her let out her breath in surprise. “You were right. Unfortunately there is not much we can do right now. But you were right.”

Waiters come over, set down plates of food before them each and Betty unrolls her cutlery from a napkin. There’s a mixture of fruit on the plate - dried and not - some bread, honey, a small amount of meat. “I know my father,” Betty says.

Nareema looks at her thoughtfully, chin resting on her fist. “Yes,” she says. “Yes you do. His majesty would like to offer you a job.”

 

* * *

 

This is what her job is, really: looking over data and telling them what her father is going to do. 

It’s easy, really, to do this. She’s done it for years, from the first moment she realised just the monster her father was.

_ We inherit from our parents though, _ she think sometimes.  _ How much of a monster does that make me? _

It’s easy to shed that thought, though. She has never tried to imprison someone, tried to kill someone, simply because they won’t let her make them a weapon.

 

* * *

 

“Your father,” T’Challa says, the first time she meets him, after she’s delivered an explanation of her predictions for his behaviour. “He is a very aggressive man.”

Betty nods. “He always has been. When he was in the army they called him Thunderbolt. General Thunderbolt Ross.”

T’Challa lets out a bark of laughter. “Thunderbolt,” he says, “Quick to attack, quick to leave a wake of destruction.”

Betty smiles. “Exactly. And this, the Accords…,” she pauses, folds her hands over themselves over and over. “Sir, I know Wakanda meant well with them, and that people with abilities  _ do _ need oversight, but there’s so much leeway to them. My father, he’ll use that. Every inch he can get he’ll fight tooth and claw for.”

T’Challa’s smile becomes sombre. “It is a good thing, then,” he says, “That Wakanda’s claws are made of a stronger material than his.”

 

* * *

 

There’s no sign of Bruce. Not anywhere. 

Betty knows she should give up this hope - God in heaven, it’s been  _ years _ \- but Bruce has been a friend as much as a lover to her, someone incredibly dear to her right down to the core of herself. She can’t let go of it that easily. Some niggling part of her mind refuses to.

There’s no sign of Bruce. Not the least sign - and Betty knows that if there  _ was _ the least sign her father would have rushed in, guns blazing, completely unsubtle as only he can be.

There’s nothing.

 

* * *

 

“Doctor Ross,” T’Challa says one day, catching her elbow with gentle fingers. She’s been here weeks now, almost a month, and she’s getting more used to the casual way T’Challa interacts with his more regular staff. “How are you with panicked patients?”

“G-good?” Betty says. “But I’m more science than medical. I mean I can patch someone up but-”

“Can you calm someone down?” he asks. “We’re trying, but our calmer doctors are on missions out right now.”

Betty straightens up, back ramrod straight. “Sir,” she says. “I calmed down the  _ Hulk. _ ”

 

* * *

 

She knows the face she’s shown - how can she not, it’s been plastered over every news report. She turns to T’Challa as soon as she’s shown into the room.

“ _ What is he doing here?” _

“It is a long story,” T’Challa says. “And I promise I will explain after this. But for now, suffice to say, he is part of the reason we believe every word you have said about your father.”

 

* * *

 

Betty makes her way around the room, doesn’t flinch at the yells Bucky Barnes gives. She’s faced down a roaring Hulk, a mere man is nothing compared to that.

(The only man who can scare her, these days, is her father, with all the power he’s accumulated.)

“We cannot help you,” she says softly, “if you do not let us.”

Barnes’ eyes focus on her as she calmly sets scalpel and forceps back onto the tray with neat fingers, before pushing it back onto a counter. 

“I’m Betty,” she says. “The doctors who helped you last time, they’ve had to go elsewhere, T’Challa said they have missions out of the country. I got pulled from analysing my father’s garbage speeches to he here for you, so I’d appreciate it  _ if you let me help you.” _

Barnes is still panting, but he falls utterly silent. When she draws close to dab the blood away from a scratch on his forehead he grasps her wrist.

“What,” he says, “is the date.”

 

* * *

 

“Sir,” Betty tells T’Challa, when she’s finished patching up Barnes. “I think you owe me a very big explanation.”

 

* * *

 

He does explain. About finding them, about ending the hunt for vengeance, about offering them shelter and helping them get their friends out of the Raft. 

(“I hadn’t heard about a breakout,” Betty says and T’Challa smiles.)

(“Do you think your father would admit his super-prison was so immediate a failure?” he says, and Betty almost laughs.)

“We’d appreciate it,” he says, “if you were to remain with them. Barnes remains in cryo, much of the time, but we are slowly working the programming out of his mind. At some point we will replace his arm. But for now, we cannot displace so much of the staff, it would be easier-”

“Easier if you had someone capable enough and who already speaks the language in there with them,” Betty says. “Easier to put the white girl who looks really out of place, in with the other really out of place people you can’t have it getting known are there.”

T’Challa inclines his head. “It would not be always,” he promises. “And we would very much still rely on your analysis of your father.”

Betty considers, taps her fingers over the table.

“All right,” she says. “But I expect a pay raise.”

 

* * *

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave comments!


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